


Continuity

by nnozomi



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 10:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4176615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nnozomi/pseuds/nnozomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things change, catastrophically; others stay the same no matter what. Either way you cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Continuity

**Author's Note:**

> Set near the end of _Dragonquest_.

Because the flight had finished in mid-morning, everything had pretty much settled down by the evening of the next day—wingleader and wingsecond appointments and Fall strategies confirmed, disgruntled bronze riders pacified. The headwoman sent up a meal for two, as lavish as High Reaches’ limited resources would permit at this point. Pilgra noted the scarcity of spices in the stew and thought she might go out to the Holds herself, to make a point of the changed regime as well as encouraging rather more generous tithing.

…Perhaps not Nabol. No. But she hadn’t seen High Reaches Hold from ground level in…in four hundred and seven years, or more. How old had she been at that Gather? Young enough to be thrilled at the long swoop down to the fireheights, sitting in front of her mother on Hezreth’s neck. For an instance the uncomplicated delight of the childhood memory threatened to bring tears to her eyes.

Well, she was no child now. Sixteen when they came forward, nineteen when she Impressed, and now, at twenty-three, senior Weyrwoman of High Reaches.

Pilgra took another bite of the bland stew and looked across the low table at her Weyrleader.

T’bor was eating methodically, his mind plainly elsewhere. He was nice-looking, if you liked the type, broad-shouldered and clear-skinned, tight-curled hair cropped very short. Still young, too, what—ten years older than she was? A bit more? “Weyrleader” had been synonymous with “T’kul” for so much of her life that it seemed incongruous for the Weyrleader to be a man of more or less her own generation. T’bor was a seasoned leader, of course, with seven years at Southern Weyr under his belt, but she couldn’t help wondering how the older riders would…no. No, of course. She kept forgetting, still.

He didn’t notice her watching him, the distant look in his eyes making him look almost as if he was conversing with his dragon.

_Orth sleeps_ , Segrith told her, the mental tone still edged with satisfaction at having gained such a fine new bronze partner.

_You should too_ , Pilgra responded. She didn’t want to make her dragon uncomfortable with the conversation she was about to have.

Segrith didn’t respond to that, but her mind was still there. Well, nothing for it. Pilgra washed down the last of her stew with a mouthful of klah (at least that was all right; Julal had always prided herself on her klah brewing, except when it was for her old enemy Merika) and cleared her throat. “Weyrleader?”

T’bor blinked, set down his spoon and raised his head slightly. “Yes?”

“I wanted to…well, to make sure you know…” No useful phrases came to her. “I…I look forward to working with you more, I’m glad it was Orth who flew Segrith so you’ve stayed Weyrleader…the thing is…”

He was looking at her with mild, disinterested curiosity, no more.

“I know you were with— _her_ for a long time. You don’t have to…when Orth isn’t flying Segrith, you don’t need to worry about…” She couldn’t seem to find any way to put it that didn’t make her sound like a Lower Caverns girl having her first fling with a rider.

T’bor was looking at her steadily, focusing on her for what seemed like the first time, and she imagined what he saw. Her skin was lighter than his—the full-dark complexion was the only thing she could think of that he had in common with T’kul—but half a shade darker than her mother’s, the brown of High Reaches turned earth. Like Merika’s her hair was thick and dark brown, glossy when brushed out, and dead straight. Weyrwomen mostly wore their hair short for convenience adragonback, but short hair didn’t suit either of them. Since before coming forward Merika had worn her hair in a single thick braid, without exception; Pilgra couldn’t remember seeing it loose since her own childhood. She did her own hair the same way for Threadfall, but had started making a point of letting it down around the Weyr, or pinning it up fancifully—just another way of reminding the Weyr that she wasn’t Merika.

Not bad, as women went—it wasn’t only bronze riders with an eye to the Weyrleader’s seat who showed interest in coming to her bed—but not Kylara’s extravagant beauty, either. She didn’t want to think about what she’d see in T’bor’s eyes if he had to wake up beside her every morning.

He cleared his throat. “I’m not intending to force any unwelcome attentions on you. You needn’t worry.”

“No, I…I don’t mean they’d be unwelcome, just that…well, I’m not intending…we’re colleagues. I’m not expecting to take _her_ place.”

“You can say her name, you know,” T’bor said evenly. “It won’t bring her back.” His face worked.

Pilgra looked down at the scarred old stone table. It might have been there since her childhood, four hundred and some years ago. That had been the strangest part, after they had first come forward—not the changes, but the things that had stayed the same. The night before they left, three of her agemates—J’val and L’guer, both blue riders, and Tolly who was apprenticed to the Weyrtanner—had spent hours carving their names into a sheltered corner of the Bowl wall. When they came to the modern Weyr, she’d seen Tolly staring at the weathered, sand-scoured letters, still just legible.

“You can’t go back,” she said aloud, half a response to T’bor, half to her own thoughts. “We moved forward once and we’ve got to keep moving, that’s all.”

She thought he would withdraw again into his own reverie, but after a moment he said unexpectedly “Is that why you’re still here? Not at Southern, I mean?”

“Why do you _think_ I’m still here? Most of us didn’t stay, you know. Even the younger riders.” J’val and Tolly were still at High Reaches, but L’guer had gone; so had Timay, who had stood on the Hatching Grounds with her when Segrith hatched, and R’sull, whose Daventh had flown Segrith her first time. Pilgra had been working hard at not feeling abandoned, until the two queens rose and she had other things to worry about. “I miss them,” she heard herself say, forgetting for a moment what—whom—he must be missing. “Even Merika.”

“Merika…” T’bor frowned, giving her a sudden second look.

“…was my mother, yes. Is, I mean. You must have noticed the resemblance.”

“I suppose…yes, well, I don’t think Merika and I ever crossed paths more than a handful of times, at that. And…was your father…”

“T’kul, you mean? I don’t know. I was born when Merika was still a junior weyrwoman, and I don’t know who she was sharing a bed with back then. She never said one way or the other. Anyway, Hezreth would never have let Salth fly Segrith, so _that_ problem didn’t arise even after I Impressed.”

“No,” T’bor agreed, sounding disconcerted. “Sometimes I still think some things were simpler back when there was only one queen dragon in all of Pern…well.” He sighed quietly, long and melancholy, and Pilgra watched him make a conscious effort to return his mind to the conversation at hand. “But even so you didn’t decide to go…with your mother…”

“Down South. No. This is my Weyr, I’ve lived my whole life here in one time or the other, and I’ve paid my dues to Merika and T’kul. I’m a queenrider, I belong where there’s Thread to fight. And I’m not fool enough not to understand when F’lar of Benden is seeing clearer than T’kul of the High Reaches.” She hadn’t meant it to come out quite such a ringing declaration.

T’bor regarded her in silence for a moment, dark eyes narrowed, a surprising small smile at the corners of his mouth. “Not an Oldtimer any more, then?”

Pilgra sat up straighter. “Did I say that? I was born in the Oldtime and I’ve no shame for it. We were brave to come here, do any of you modern riders ever remember that? How many of you would dare jump four hundred Turns ahead of your own time?” She swallowed and made herself fall silent, momentarily expecting a harsh bark of reproof and perhaps a blow for her temerity. But T’bor was not T’kul; he was still watching her, no longer smiling but not angry either.

“Pilgra of the High Reaches,” he said finally, with more formality than she had heard from him until now. “We think alike, you and I. That’s not something I…never mind. We have a Weyr to run. If I can count on you to work with me there, I’m not going to worry much about what we do or don’t do in bed. That’ll work itself out.”

_Yes, it will,_ Segrith added unexpectedly, sounding positively smug.

_You be quiet._ Pilgra breathed deep. “T’bor of the High Reaches, you have a deal.”

 


End file.
